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of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will
scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no
more, ha?

Hor.
Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

Hor.
Ay, my lord, And of calf-skins too.

Ham.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I
will speak to this fellow.--Whose grave's this, sir?

1 Clown.
Mine, sir.
[Sings.]
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

Ham.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.

1 Clown.
You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours: for my part,
I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

Ham.
Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine: 'tis for
the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clown.
'Tis a quick lie, sir; 't will away again from me to you.

Ham.
What man dost thou dig it for?

1 Clown.
For no man, sir.

Ham.
What woman then?

1 Clown.
For none neither.

Ham.
Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clown.
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham.
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or
equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three
years I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that
the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he
galls his kibe.--How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

1 Clown.
Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our
last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

Ham.
How long is that since?

1 Clown.
Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it was the
very day that young Hamlet was born,--he that is mad, and sent
into England.

Ham.
Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?

1 Clown.
Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there;
or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

Ham.
Why?

1 Clown.
'Twill not he seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham.
How came he mad?

1 Clown.
Very strangely, they say.

Ham.
How strangely?

1 Clown.
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham.
Upon what ground?

1 Clown.
Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy,
thirty years.

Ham.
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

1 Clown.
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,--as we have many
pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in,--he
will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last
you nine year.

Ham.
Why he more than another?

1 Clown.
Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade that he will
keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of
your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now; this skull hath lain
in the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham.
Whose was it?

1 Clown.
A whoreson, mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

Ham.
Nay, I know not.

1 Clown.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'a pour'd a flagon of

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